


Rooted (In One Dear Perpetual Place)

by Xinbimodu



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-05 08:36:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xinbimodu/pseuds/Xinbimodu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a divorcé with a dangerous job and an ex-wife who wants to move halfway across the world with her new fiancé. Under normal circumstances Stiles would gladly help her pack her matching Louis Vuitton bags but when she claims he's unfit to raise a child and hires a lawyer to gain full custody of their daughter he has to figure out a way to stop her. </p><p>Never in a million years could he have imagined the solution to his problem being one Derek Hale and a <i>tiny</i> white lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the poem "A Prayer for my Daughter" by William Butler Yeats

All Stiles can comprehend, as he watches Derek shove one of five cuffed perps into the back of a BHPD cop car, is that he is in an excruciating amount of pain. Being side tackled by three-hundred and fifty pounds of angry muscle really shouldn’t hurt this much.

“I think I’m dying,” he says when Erica drops to her knees beside him, a pinched, worried look in her eyes. She shakes her head, a wry smile playing at the corners of her lips, as she presses both hands heavily against the arm he’d landed on. It hurts like hell.

“You better keep it down,” she says, hands unfastening his bulletproof vest with practiced ease. “I’d really hate to see Derek’s face if he heard you talking about leaving him.”

Through the fog of discomfort Stiles stares at her in confusion and says, “I’m dying, Erica, not serving him divorce papers.”

“Eh, same thing,” she says, distracted. “Boyd! We need an ambulance!”

Some tiny part of Stiles’ brain tells him to make Erica explain herself but between the fog of pain clouding his senses and the irritation trying to manifest at her calling in an ambulance he’s a bit preoccupied. He’s just a little winded is all. A motrin and some sleep should fix him right up.

When he says as much Erica stares at him in disbelief.

“Stiles,” she says, all serious and slow like he’s a complete idiot, “You’ve been shot.”

Oh. So that explains the uncomfortable numbness in the entirety of his left hand.

“Huh. Getting shot hurts.”

Who knew?

That gets a smile out of Erica and an eye roll from Boyd who has already called the ambulance and finished interviewing the few eye-witnesses that—thank every deity known to human kind—managed to stay out of the line of fire. The loud whirring of helicopter blades beating at the warm, summer air makes Stiles look up past their heads with a strange, disconnected sort of resignation. Somewhere, a handful of miles away, his dad is probably watching the now-o-clock news and shaking his head, resigned.

Either that or he’s already stress eaten his way through a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream and his arteries are weeping, not on Stiles’ behalf but on their own.

Stiles is just starting to wonder whether or not asking Erica to call his dad to check in on him, and to tell his dad to put down the spoon or suffer the consequences, will help his cause or hinder it, once he’s released from the hospital of course, when Derek finishes shoving the rest of the perps into a heavily guarded transport van and makes his way over.

Somewhere in town the main clock strikes three and Stiles feels his blood run cold.

Elizabeth.

He’s just opened his mouth to ask Erica to call Beacon Hills Elementary instead of his dad when Derek gets close enough to realize that Stiles is in fact bleeding and not repose with joy at having caught the bad guys once again (it’s been known to happen, okay? Don’t judge). He huffs out a world-weary sigh—as if Stiles and his gunshot wound are somehow an inconvenience— and drags out his cell phone without a second glance as Isaac and another EMT arrive and begin the arduous process of packing Stiles into the back of the ambulance.

“Sheriff,” Derek starts and Stiles would roll his eyes if everything didn’t hurt. His dad hasn’t been the Sheriff in nearly five years but Derek refuses to call him anything but. “Stiles isn’t going to be able to pick Elizabeth up from school this afternoon. Are you busy or should I ask Laura to get her?”

The conversation is brief, over almost as soon as it began, but he can breathe a little easier when Derek shoves his phone back into his pocket with a shake of his head and says, “Your dad’s picking her up from school. Stop worrying.”

Erica scoffs from where she’s crammed herself into the ambulance beside Stiles, “Really, Derek? That’s like telling him not to breathe.”

“Yeah,” Stiles replies, suddenly drowsy and ohhhh, sedatives are nice. “What she said. It was my turn to pick Elizabeth up today. I pinky promised.”

Derek’s small, amused smile is the last thing Stiles sees before the doors to the ambulance close and the engine beneath him purrs to life, dragging him down into a fitful, heavily medicated sleep.

He wakes up one complicated operation and an indeterminate amount of time later with a strange, wiggling weight on his legs. He can’t quiet remember where he is or how he got there so he fakes sleep, trying to surreptitiously take stock of his surroundings. It’s relatively quiet and, though his entire left arm is tied up and away from his body, he can’t feel anyone looming over him. Knowing his luck he’s probably been cuffed to a pipe with his own handcuffs—never let it be said that criminals don’t have a sense of humor—and, if the even distribution of weight is anything to go by, he’s got a guard dog napping on his legs. 

It’s not exactly the nicest way to regain consciousness but it’s better than waking up in the trunk of a car with his face pressed against a spare tire. 

Again.

He’s gently feeling around for the hideaway knife usually strapped to his right hip (the knife that no one ever thinks to look for under his tact vest) when the pressure on his legs begins to move slowly up his torso. He freezes in place, trying to regulate his breathing. The weight settles on his chest, a warning to remain still, but instead of rancid dog breathe he’s hit with the scent of peanut butter and ... _chocolate_? 

Stiles pauses in his frantic, half-baked formulation of an escape plan because, really? Hardcore criminals that feed their guard dogs peanut butter bonbons deserve a moment of incredulity. What kind of criminals are these? They should know not to feed a dog chocolate. The poor thing could—

“Daddy, wake up. It’s not nap time anymore.” 

Stiles’ eyes fly open and land on Elizabeth’s unhappy little face, his body going from tense to relieved to even more tense in a cycle fast enough to give him whiplash. He’s about to two heartbeats away from going ballistic—because kidnapping him is one thing, but kidnapping him _and his daughter_ is a whole different story—when he recognizes the sparse, impersonal furnishings of the room he’s in. Blinding overhead lights, uncomfortable beds clothed in scratchy bedding, eerie quiet and whitewashed walls all point to one, no less irritating, conclusion.

They’re not being held captive. 

He’s in the hospital. 

The tension bleeds out of his muscles yet again, leaving him shaky with relief as he wraps his right arm around his daughter. 

“Lizzie? Hey baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to her disheveled hair. There’s chocolate in the corners of her mouth and, if the dirty tear tracks down her cheeks are anything to go by, she’s been crying. He’s never been happier to see her. 

“I’m not a baby,” she grouches, nuzzling into his neck. “And I’m not your Lizzie either. You broke your pinky promise.”

Stiles would laugh if he didn’t feel like a giant steaming pile of crap. “I know, but I got hurt while I was at work.” Honestly, he really can’t remember what landed him in the hospital but he does know that the complete absence of serious pain means he’s on the good meds. That alone is indicative of some serious bodily injury. 

Elizabeth huffs unhappily at him, as if to say his answer isn’t good enough and Stiles jiggles her a little, making her giggle and sending the sling his left arm is in to swaying, “Can you forgive me?”

Her reply is cut off by the sharp rap of knuckles on his open room door. 

Stiles glances up to find his father and Scott in the doorway, one with a clipboard in hand and the other with a frown on his face. 

“I’m glad to see you awake,” Scott says on his way over to Stiles’ bedside. He’s in doctor mode but Stiles can read his relief in the dimples of his smile. 

“Hell, I’m just glad you’re alive,” his dad counters, brows pinched together and scowl firmly in place as he follows Scott’s lead.

“Grandpa!” Elizabeth admonishes.

“Don’t _Grandpa_ me, young lady,” he says, frown fading as he pulls her off Stiles’ chest and onto his hip. “Your father is going to send me to an early grave.”

Stiles is about to apologize for adding one more gray hair to his father’s head when there’s another knock on the door. He doesn’t even get a chance to say _come in_ before half his squad is tumbling in, their clothes wrinkled and just as disheveled as Elizabeth’s hair. 

“Why does everyone look like they’ve been through a Tornado?” he asks once everyone’s said hello and squeezed themselves into the tiny room. 

“Maybe because most of us slept here last night?” Erica quips, her voice sugar sweet but her eyes narrowed in irritation. 

“Last night?” 

What the hell happened to warrant him an over-night stay in the hospital?

Scott jumps in with an explanation before he can even ask. “Isaac figured you had a slight concussion but when you didn’t wake up from surgery within a few hours we realized the concussion was a bit more serious than we’d first assumed.” 

“The guy that tackled you was at least twice your size but it’s really the asphalt that did you in,” Boyd says from where he’s wedged between the wall and Erica. 

“My associates thought you’d be in a coma for at least a week,” Scott adds, his smile broadening. “They didn’t believe me when I told them just how hard headed you are.”

That sets the room to laughing, Elizabeth included. Stiles rolls his eyes good-naturedly but smiles at the dozen or so people looking happy and relieved around his bed. When Mrs. McCall walks in about an hour later to force some soup down his throat she squawks in disbelief at the crowd and shoos everyone not employed by the hospital, or listed as an emergency contact/next of kin on Stiles’ paperwork, out the door. After the grumbling mass has said their goodbyes and been escorted down the hall she returns to fluff Stiles’ pillow, check his IV and make sure his soup has been polished off. 

“We’re all happy you’re back to talking, Stiles, but visiting hours are over,” she says, tucking the hospital sheets around his legs and giving his dad a pointed look before turning to her son, “And you should know better, _doctor_. Go finish your rounds before I kick you out too.” 

Scott opens his mouth to protest but seems to think better of it and bids Stiles and his father goodnight. 

They talk for another half-hour or so, Elizabeth falling asleep against Stiles’ side in the process and Stiles learning that the full extent of his injuries include a few hairline fractures, a broken collarbone and not one but two gunshot wounds. When he asks about the meds they have him on his dad laughs so loudly it almost wakes Elizabeth up. 

“Let’s just say it’s probably better for you not to know,” he replies, shaking his head in amusement and dismissal at the look on Stiles’ face. A second later Mrs. McCall pokes her head in once more, this time to tell Stiles to go to sleep and to tell his dad to get out.

“Take Elizabeth back to the house and put yourselves both to bed. Stiles will still be here in the morning,” she says, watching to make sure that the smallest Stilinski and her grandfather are up and out of their seats before she leaves. They exchange kisses and hugs and one sleepy pinky promise before heading towards the door. 

“Oh, and Stiles?” his dad says, turning back at the last minute, Elizabeth sleeping soundly on his shoulder once more, “I’m the one who picked Lizzie up from school yesterday but Sophia is the one who dropped her off to see you this afternoon. I think you should give her a call to say thank you.”

Stiles frowns but nods a reply. “I’ll call her tomorrow.” 

“Good. Now, get some rest and we’ll see you in the morning,” his dad says, smiling one last time before turning the corner into the hall and heading for home. 

Stiles sighs, listening to the silence before settling down and trying to get comfortable. Rest really isn’t going to prepare him for any kind of talk with his ex-wife.

If there’s one thing experience has taught him over the years it’s that nothing really can.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles wakes up with early morning sunlight in his eyes and a throbbing pain in his left shoulder. Though he's definitely not calling any names, the doctor responsible for leaving him in his standing sling all night obviously hadn't thought things through. Stiles shakes his head in amusement, because Scott's always been bad at multi-tasking while extremely happy, and then opens his mouth to let out a jaw cracking yawn. There's no clock to check the time but, going by the stale, sour taste in his mouth and the aching fullness of his bladder, he's been asleep for quite a while. Hell, he hasn't slept this much since he was in high school. 

He blinks sleepily at the door to the bathroom, wondering if moving would really be worth it. The door is slightly ajar and, though he can't see a toothbrush on the sink, he can see the toilet. The promise of relief that it's hollowed porcelain depths offer is a good enough incentive to make him wiggle into an upright position. He'll just try not to breathe on any unsuspecting visitors until he's had a chance to fight off his morning breath with the combined powers of Colgate and Listerine. 

He eyes the little red button near his bedside for a moment before deciding that nope, he doesn't need a nurse's assistance. He's a big boy and he can make the trek to the bathroom all by himself, thank you. He sizes up the multitude of wires taped to his body in various places and decides that while everything else may serve some sort of purpose the IV drip and the sling over his arm are the only things that absolutely have to come with him. It’s easy enough to detach the sling from the plastic arm it’s been hanging on above his bed all night, and even easier to loop the lead around his neck to keep everything pretty close to immobilized, but removing a cannula was definitely not a part of his field training. 

The first sticky round circle attached to his chest comes off like a band-aid, which is to say painfully slowly and with much wincing. After a minute, when no one comes running in to reprimand him, he pulls off the other three. He's pretty sure he's in the clear when he flings back the covers and sets his socked feet onto the floor, tentatively testing his newfound freedom. He can almost feel the near orgasmic relief that comes with emptying a bladder that's fit to burst when everything goes pear shaped. 

He's two shaky steps away from the bed when the wire connected to the grey clamp over his right pointer finger pulls taut. Without turning around or even checking to see what said wire is connected to he pulls off the clamp and leaves it dangling off the bed. He doesn't make it half a step farther before the machine that's been beeping steadily since he woke up starts serenading him with a continuous, high pitched whine. Stiles turns, horrified, and tries desperately to shut the noise off by sticking the clamp back over his finger. The door to his room slams open before he has the chance. The two tiny, but frankly terrifying, nurses standing in his doorway look like they’re ready to go to war, not save someone’s life and he stares at them with wide, petrified eyes. They in turn stare at him in irritated shock for all of two seconds before they’re being pushed out of the way by the sheer breadth of one very angry looking Derek Hale. 

“Why the hell aren’t you guys doing anything to save— _Stiles_?”

Stiles wiggles his fingers at him in a shoddy attempt at hello. 

“What are you doing?” Derek asks, arms crossed and eyes narrowed into tiny disapproving slits. 

“I had to pee,” Stiles says in reply, feeling slightly cowed by the judging disapproval on all three unimpressed faces. The first nurse rolls her eyes once before taking her leave, muttering darkly under her breath about how much she hates dealing with cops. The second one glances questioningly between Stiles and Derek before moving to shut the screaming machine off with a smirk. Stiles tries his best to focus on the very upset cop in front of him instead of on the attractive woman with a front row view of his pale, unsightly ass. Seriously though, his dignity has taken a beating at the hands of this hospital gown and he’s looking to lodge a complaint the moment he receives a clean bill of health. 

“Mr. Stilinski,” Stiles tears his eyes away from Derek’s over-grown stubble to glance back at the nurse. “If you’re finished staring at your boyfriend I’d really like to put that arm of yours in an actual sling and check the coverings on your gunshot wounds.” 

Stiles blinks at her a few times, contemplates denying any sort of unprofessional relationship with Derek and then just gives up and takes a seat, dejected. “He’s not my boyfriend.” 

The nurse hums at him in reply and brushes his gown aside to check the packing and gauze taped around his shoulder. Halfway through the process Derek huffs out an “I’ll be right back,” and leaves for parts unknown. Ten minutes later, after the nurse has added more medication to his drip and finished poking at him Stiles finally, _finally_ gets to spend some quality time in the bathroom. 

His bladder weeps in relief, he’s sure of it. 

He’s attempting to wash his hand and trying not to stare at the dark circles under his eyes when the bathroom door is pulled open just wide enough for Derek to pass a small duffel through the crack. Stiles takes it wordlessly, relieved to find toothpaste and a toothbrush tucked alongside a pair of underwear and a change clothes, and emerges fifteen minutes later half dressed—because there’s no way he’s getting a shirt on over the sling—and feeling mostly human. 

“We heard you scared the pants off our brave and powerful leader this morning,” Erica says by way of a greeting, eyeing his naked chest appreciatively. She’s sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed, hands wrapped around a frighteningly massive cup of coffee. Derek snorts at her derisively from where he’s leaning against the wall next to a smirking Boyd. Stiles is getting really tired of all the smirking that people seem to be doing around him these days. It’s like they all know something he doesn’t. 

The not knowing is driving him insane. 

“I hope someone brought me coffee,” he says instead of replying to the barb, eyeing the cups and brown, grease soaked bags perched on various surfaces around his itty-bitty room. His stomach growls in discontent as he shuffles back to his bed, IV stand in tow. 

“No coffee for you, just food,” Derek says, pushing off the wall to hand him one of the brown bags once he’s propped up against a mound of pillows. Stiles would grumble about being refused coffee but the hot croissant sandwiches at the bottom of the bag he’s been handed are calling his name. He’s moaning around his second bite and trying to flip a laughing Erica off at the same time when the first nurse from earlier comes by with a breakfast tray. Stiles freezes like he’s been caught with his pants around his ankles at the senior prom but she just rolls her eyes at him and sets the tray on the rotating table near his bed. After she leaves Erica takes an obscene amount of pleasure in tasting all of the food on the tray before deeming it unfit for human consumption and then throwing it in the trash. 

They’re discussing just how long Stiles is going to have to stay in the hospital and taking bets on how long it’ll take for him to wear out his welcome when Elizabeth flies into the room and, instead of making a beeline for her dad, latches onto Derek’s legs. Stiles watches in amusement as Derek’s face goes from confused to grinning and content in less time than it takes him to swallow his mouthful of food. 

“Derek!” she yells, clinging to him until he lifts her into his arms for a hug. Somewhere in the room Erica is cooing about how cute they are but Stiles is a little distracted by the bachata his heart is doing in his chest. Derek’s always been good with Elizabeth, even Sophia has commented on it once or twice, but it’s been so long since Stiles had seen the two of them interact that he’d almost forgotten what a kick to the gut it always is to see his little girl so affectionate with someone other than immediate family. 

“Where were you yesterday?” Elizabeth asks, suddenly indignant now that she’s got her cuddle fix. Derek looks cornered and, though Stiles could probably save him, he’s just as curious about Derek’s answer. Half the department was at his bedside last night when he woke up but Derek was nowhere to be found. 

Erica is snickering into her coffee as Derek says, “I had to work. My best people were here with your daddy, watching to make sure he didn’t try to escape. You know he doesn’t like medicine.” 

Elizabeth looks over her shoulder at her dad, as if to confirm this. Stiles tries his best to look sufficiently petulant as Boyd nods his agreement. “Your dad is the _worst_ , Elizabeth. Erica and I were here _all night_ to make sure he didn’t climb out his window before the doctor could make him feel better.” 

“Stop trying to turn my daughter against me,” Stiles whines. Elizabeth giggles at him and wiggles in Derek’s arms until he puts her down. By the time she’s zipped over to the bed and scaled the side, like the little monkey she is, Stiles’ dad has finished his conversation with the nurse in the hall and appeared in the doorway. There’s a grin on his face and a Ni Hao Kai-Lan backpack slung over his shoulder. 

“What’s this I hear about an attempted escape?” 

Stiles groans into Elizabeth’s hair as everyone bursts into laughter. 

After lunch, a few hours later, Stiles’ dad asks the question Stiles has been dreading since he first showed up. 

“Have you called Sophia yet?” 

Elizabeth is sleeping curled up against Stiles’ uninjured side and though Erica and Boyd were in the middle of a pretty quite card game before his dad asked they’re absolutely silent now. Derek, who’s been dozing in one of the armchairs he brought in from the lobby, drops his feet from their perch on the corner of Stiles’ bed and stand. 

“Boyd, Erica, we have somewhere else to be.” The three of them say a few brief goodbyes and promise to return in a few hours before leaving. Stiles simultaneously hates to see them go, because now it’s just him and his dad, and is immensely grateful for the privacy. 

He runs his fingers through Elizabeth’s dark brown curls and shakes his head, waiting for the door to click closed before saying, “Not yet.” 

And it’s not that he’s not grateful to Sophia for letting Elizabeth stay with his dad while he’s in the hospital over the weekend he just … doesn’t know what to say to her. She’s never really approved of his line of work, as necessary as she thinks it is, and she’s bound to have seen him on the news. A simple phone call to say thank you is, in all likelihood, going to turn into an all out war and Stiles really isn’t in the mood to put on his battle armor. 

His dad stares at him for a minute, as if he can read his thoughts, and then shakes his head. “The longer you put this off the worse it’s going to get, Stiles.” 

The thing is, Stiles knows that but, much like the student who puts off that ten page essay until the very last minute, he can’t seem to make himself pick up the phone. 

His dad huffs a sigh and stands, nudging Stiles’ phone towards him on the tray littered with cups and cards; the debris of the bedbound. 

“Call her,” and then he too is gone. 

Stiles stares at his phone for a long time before deciding he may as well listen to his dad and just get things over with. Elizabeth is due to wake up from her nap in a while and he’d really rather not argue with Sophia in front of her. 

Though Sophia’s number isn’t on his speed dial anymore, butt dialing your ex has _got_ to be awkward, it’s been pretty much impossible for him to un-memorize her phone number. Considering it also the only number he can contact Elizabeth at during the week, he hasn’t tried very hard over the past two and a half years. 

He punches in all ten digits and holds his breath hoping, like a coward, that she won’t pick up and that he can leave a voicemail instead. When she picks up on the third ring with a wary hello he figures hanging up would be unbearably rude and inhales a deep, fortifying breath. 

“Hey, Sophia. It’s Stiles.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three should be posted next Sunday. Have a great week everyone!


	3. Chapter 3

“Stiles, I know who this is. You’re on my speed-dial,” Sophia says in reply to his awkward greeting. Stiles frowns at nothing and tries not to feel like an immature idiot for deleting her number the moment she’d served him divorce papers. He doesn’t succeed. 

“Oh. Well,” he starts, thrown by that particular bit of information and already beginning to forget his half composed speech. “I’m just calling to—” 

He’s interrupted by the cacophonous clatter of something being dropped on Sophia’s end of the call. The raucous turns into yelling as whomever dropped the whatever begins arguing with another person in the background. 

Sophia huffs out an impatient sigh and a “Stiles, hold on,” before reprimanding the people arguing into silence. Her rapid fire Italian has Stiles simultaneously shaking in his boots and trying to stifle a laugh. By the time he and Sophia went their separate ways he was pretty much fluent in Italian—one, three month, semester abroad and five years of marriage later he damn well better have been—and Stiles can tell she’s not so much annoyed as downright angry at the incompetence of her staff. He’d bet good money that now was probably not a good time to call. 

A few minutes later (after several people have been handed their proverbial asses, in all four of the languages that Sophia speaks fluently) she says, “So did you call to speak to me about something or have you just missed the sound of my voice?” 

Stiles rolls his eyes because no, not in a million years. Just no. “I was calling to say thank you for bringing Lizzie by yesterday.” When Sophia doesn’t immediately follow that up with a you’re welcome he tacks on a casually quick, “but if you’re busy I can call back later.” 

Way to go, Stiles. Why not make it even more obvious that you don’t want to talk to your ex-wife? Sophia’s short, humorless burst of laughter tells him that his intentions are about as transparent as a sliding glass door and that she sees right through them. A door shuts somewhere on her end of the line and the background noise fades into nothingness. “If you call back later there’s no guarantee that I’ll actually pick up.” 

Ouch. 

“Please, don’t censor yourself on my account,” he gripes. 

Sophia’s high tinkling laugh, nearly identical to the one Stiles fell in love with all those years ago on a tiny side street in the middle of Venice, makes him ache, even if just momentarily, for what they used to have, for what they used to be to one another. It’s been two years since their divorce, and three years since she told him that it was either her or his career, but sometimes Stiles still wonders what his future would look like if he’d chosen sleepy Sunday mornings and quiet afternoons with her instead of sleepless nights on stakeouts and a life full of too much paperwork, danger and crappy coffee. 

“I never have, Stiles, and I never will,” there’s a pregnant pause that Stiles fights not to fill with inane babble. He can tell, by the cadence of her breathing and the soft sadness of her words, that she’s not quite finished saying her piece. Sophia’s never been one to talk more than she has to, a side effect of growing up in a big family she’d always said, but she’s always been very good at effortlessly expressing her joy, her anger, her contentment. Stiles knows that if she’s taking this long to perfectly phrase her next sentence that he’s not going to like whatever it is that she’s planning to say. He looks down at Elizabeth, still sleeping soundly beside him, and wedges the phone between his uninjured shoulder and his ear so that he can run his fingers gently through her hair as he waits. 

“I’m planning to file for sole custody of Elizabeth.” 

It’s a declaration that's more painful than being shot. 

“Excuse me?” Stiles asks an eternity later, shocked, disbelieving and above all _hurt_. He couldn’t have possibly heard her correctly. He couldn’t have. There’s just no way. He’s a great father. He follows Sophia’s every instruction when it comes to Elizabeth, regardless of how arbitrary. He’d protect Elizabeth with his life, would do anything to give her the world. Sophia has to know that. Sophia _does_ know that. 

“Stiles,” Sophia sighs again, for the umpteenth time since that hellish night three years ago when he’d come home battered and bruised and she’s asked him, for the first time, to choose. “Every time we pass a police car on the road, Elizabeth cranes her neck to see whether or not it’s you, to find out whether or not you’re safe. Every time we hear sirens she bursts into tears because she thinks you’ve been hurt.” 

Stiles blinks at nothing, keeps carding his fingers through Elizabeth’s soft hair. He hadn’t known. 

“Last week,” Sophia starts again, desperate to make him understand, “Elizabeth came to me crying, in the middle of the night, because she’d had a terrible dream. One in which all the ‘bad guys’ in the world stole her away from me and you died trying to save her. You cannot expect me to just stand idly by and watch your loyalty to your career destroy the psyche of my—of _our_ little girl, Stiles. I won’t stand for it.” 

This time the silence left behind by her words is devoid of any sort of anticipation. Stiles feels flayed alive. 

Broken. 

“You can’t take her away from me, Sophia,” he hears his voice crack, thick with emotion. So this is what it feels like to have his heart ripped out of his chest. “Please don’t take her away from me.” 

Sophia’s voice jumps an octave, “Don’t make this about me, Stiles, don’t you dare. Your lifestyle isn’t conducive to raising a child. You know that just as much as I do.” 

Only he doesn’t, not really, because his father had raised him just fine. Sure there’d been times when the going was a bit rough but Stiles thinks his dad did a pretty bang-up job of being a cop and a single parent at the same time. Telling Stiles that his attempt to do the same thing on a _part-time_ basis is a bust, and then punishing him for it in the same breath, hardly seems fair. When Stiles tells Sophia as much she exhales a shaky breath and says, “Stiles, I’m not trying to punish you. I’m just trying to do what’s best for Elizabeth.” 

Which makes him downright angry because, “How can you tell me that growing up without her father is going to be in her best interests? I lost one of my parents when I was eleven and seventeen years later I’m still dealing with that loss.” 

Elizabeth stirs fitfully beside him, making him wince and lower his voice to a harsh whisper, “Sophia, Elizabeth’s not even four. You can’t tell me that loosing a parent in her fundamental years, whether it’s because of death or a court ordered mandate, is going to make her a happy and well adjusted adult.” 

“It’s not like you’ll never see her again, Stiles. You’ll have visiting rights and we’ll share her on the holidays,” Stiles stews over this, tries not to chuck his phone through the open window. He’s almost managed to calm himself down completely when Sophia says, “Robert’s mother had custody of him growing up, he only saw his father three times a year while traveling abroad, and he turned out just fine.” 

Stiles sees red. Robert, the blonde haired, blue-eyed _ass_ that Sophia has been dating for over a year, gives Stiles the creeps. As far as Stiles is concerned Robert and his paper-thin façade of a squeaky-clean lifestyle can go fuck themselves. He’s done several very thorough background checks on the man over the past year and a half (because he’ll be damned if a criminal is camping right in his daughter’s backyard) and though all of them have come up empty Stiles’ instincts, both cop and otherwise, say Robert is Trouble. With a capital T. He just can’t prove it yet. 

“I don’t give a fuck about anything that has to do with Robert,” he spits. 

“Well maybe you should considering Robert asked me to marry him,” she hisses in reply. “He also wants us to move back to Europe at the end of the fiscal year.” 

Stiles feels his heart screech to a stop for the second time that day.

“Please tell me you said no.” 

Sophia’s silence speaks volumes. 

Stiles is in the middle of desperately trying to think up an appropriate response to that silence, something that will make his stance on the matter absolutely, positively, crystal clear without making him sound like the lonely, slightly jealous ex-husband that he is (because that man is going to be raising his daughter instead of him, his daughter who he’ll never see because she’ll be living _half a world away_ , if Sophia gets her way and that’s downright unacceptable) when suddenly there’s another voice vying for her attention. There’s a brief, muffled debate over the line and then Sophia is saying, “I have to go,” and “I’m filing the papers for sole custody tomorrow,” before hanging up with a final click. 

Stiles stares angrily at his phone for a full two seconds before giving in to the urge to throw it out the window. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not longer than the last chapter but it's more emotionally draining so that evens it out, right? Right >.>
> 
> Have a lovely week, my darlings!

**Author's Note:**

> You know what you should do now that you've reached the end? Come hang out with me on[my tumblr](http://xinbimodu.tumblr.com/) :]


End file.
